Seattle area rentals and EVSE...?

[defiancecp]

So long story here, but I"m probably going to be looking for a relatively short-term (1yr) lease/rental in Seattle... and as a guy who's never been to Seattle and never rented, it seems like the EVSE might be an issue.

I'm restricting my search to only options that have at least a single carport or garage spot. Still, I'm thinking an installed EVSE is probably not an option, so likely approach involves EVSE upgrade either way - but that's still not an easy solution, since there's not likely to be an 'extra' dryer plug, so I'd still have to look into having one installed right?

Anybody rented in that area and have any advice on how to deal with the EVSE issue?

 

[FairwoodRed]

Are you looking in downtown ($$$) or in the suburbs ($$)? Downtown, there are some apartment buildings that have EVSE’s in their below ground garages. In the ‘burbs, they are almost non-existent at apartments. You will find maybe 1 in 20 that are willing to listen and actually consider if they want to let you charge on their property.

You might be OK with L1 charging and the install costs would be a lot less and the likely hood of getting the landlord to go along would be a lot higher.

You could also try to convince them to either let Ecotality or Chargepoint install some L2 charging under the guise that they would have some form of revenue sharing. Ecotality has fixed pricing but Chargepoint lets the property owner set the rates.

I work in Seattle and live in the ‘burbs. I’d be willing to help with some opinions on what kind of a commute a given place would be and maybe drop by and look at a couple places for you – maybe try to talk to the manger and show what an EV is. Just send me PM and I’ll send you my contact info.

 

[evnow]

Anybody rented in that area and have any advice on how to deal with the EVSE issue?

I suggest a post in the Seattle Leaf Owners Facebook group.

 

[defiancecp]

Probably central seattle neighborhoods, though I still don't know them well enough to say that for certain. Not sure where I'll be working. Basically my company got bought and local offices (Arkansas) will be closing, and my wife and I always talked about it being nice to eventually move to Seattle, so we decided to use this as an opportunity. We may have zero luck and it may never happen, but that's pretty unlikely (already getting callbacks, faster than I thought in fact... first phone interview coming up is with an employer downtown...)

Don't want to post anything too revealing to facebook yet; with nothing definite (well, *personally* it's definite, but logistically it isn't) - I have coworkers in my friends list, so until something's more certain I want to be a little close with it (I'm kinda safe here - nobody else at work is interested in EVs, in spite of all my efforts )

But now that I've decided to put my efforts into making this work, I'm just trying to anticipate issues, and though I'd generally prefer to buy, I figure it just isn't going to be logistically plausible for a few months, and in the meantime I still gotta charge We do plan on looking specifically for locations with good transit options, but I still don't want to drop down to L1 if I can help it...

 

[evnow]

Don't want to post anything too revealing to facebook yet; with nothing definite (well, *personally* it's definite, but logistically it isn't) - I have coworkers in my friends list, so until something's more certain I want to be a little close with it (I'm kinda safe here - nobody else at work is interested in EVs, in spite of all my efforts )

We moved to Seattle completely blind - we quit our jobs and moved without even any prospects ! What we did was to get a rental in Bellevue (an eastern suburb) that is fairly close to downtown as well as had a number of opportunities nearby. Worked out okay in the end. This was 7-8 years back.

I've heard of a few rental places that have EVSEs installed. I'll post when I find more. I'll also post a question on your behalf to facebook group, so you can get some responses.

 

[FairwoodRed]

Seattle has pretty good transit that is optimized for going between the outskirts and downtown. It works for most of the riders. If you end up trying to go from North to South, you won’t like it. Assuming that you will be flying in for a personal interview, consider taking the light rail from the airport to downtown. It’s a straight shot.

I’m also assuming that you are in software, and if so, there are a lot of software companies on the Eastside (Bellevue, Redmond, etc) so you may be looking in those areas too. I have a saying “all traffic problems lead to Bellevue” I live in the South end and my 20 mile trip takes about 45 min one way during rush hour. Going 15 miles to Bellevue takes me over an hour.

There is a robust public charging network in most areas, including 6 fast chargers. You have a good change of using public charging even if you don’t get L2 at your residence.

Here are a couple of downtown places that have chargers:
Enso Condos (http://www.ensocondominiums.com/listings/for-rent ) has 3 L2 chargers on site and a Blink QC across the street.
Aspira looks to be sales only, but they have two L2’s. (http://www.aspiraseattle.com/)

Try to stay out of the Rainier Valley and White Center. If you like “interesting” people, aim for Freemont. Freemont calls themselves the Center of the Universe and most of the interesting things happen there. A step more normal, but still with lots of character are Queen Anne and Capitol Hill. Lots of artsy young people in those areas.

Parking is a pain in many Seattle areas with only paid on-street parking available. Let me know a specific address and I’ll try to find out what parking is like there. Downtown Parking in a garage can run over $200/mo after the hefty parking taxes.

 

[UkrainianKozak]

Seattle downtown has some appartment buildings with chargers, so if you like upscale appartments, that would be an option (for example http://www.aspiraseattle.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; on the other side of the lake in Bellevue http://www.bravernresidences.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false
Another option in Seattle would be to drop by for 15-20 min session of quick charging every day in SLU discovery center at Westlake and Danny or in Harvard Market at Broadway and Pike.
Yet another option, you can find an apartments near dozens of L2 chargers in Seattle, Redmond, Bellevue, Issaquah and Renton (maybe other neighborhoods as well, for all listed cities I've seen apartment clusters within a city block of L2 chargers).
Yet another option would be to charge at work, (or better yet, get an apartment near existing charger and get job at the company that provides work charging). In Seattle area I know that following companies have charging stations in at least some of their parking structures: Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Ebay, Expedia, Adobe, Starbucks, Tableau, Bill&Melinda Gates foundation, Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, AT&T office in Redmond to name a few, there's more that I know of, just don't have time to remember exactly and list those here

 

[QueenBee]

It's also an option to have a L6-20 outlet installed and using an EVSEUpgrade. It should be pretty inexpensive if a rental has the electrical panel in the garage. Depending on the situation you could get permission, or just be able to install it and either leave it or remove it when you move. I can't imagine a landlord is going to mind having the receptacle professionally installed. Obviously I'm thinking about rental houses.

 

[defiancecp]

That's kinda where I was leaning, trying to find a landlord that would let me eat the expense of just having a plug professionally installed... I'd rather not rely on public or work chargers just because they could become unavailable at an inopportune time and there's not much I could do about it (unlikely I know, but I'm a control freak )

 

[UkrainianKozak]

That's kinda where I was leaning, trying to find a landlord that would let me eat the expense of just having a plug professionally installed... I'd rather not rely on public or work chargers just because they could become unavailable at an inopportune time and there's not much I could do about it (unlikely I know, but I'm a control freak )

I can tell you from my experience that your own private charger might get unavailable as well... I had more than few times when my Blink charger failed to charge the Leaf...
If you are control freak, pick an area where you have lots of chargers nearby, One example would be Bellevue downtown, row of chargers in Bellevue place, across the street there are chargers in Lincoln center, even if those become inoperational, one block south there's city hall chargers, and there are some more one block east as well.

 

[defiancecp]

I think blink is a special case I've yet to hear of a single av charger going out of commission.

 

[defiancecp]

Alright, so in the process of actual home selection now. Have a few apartment buildings I've found with EVSE's and I've got appointments to check them out this weekend (centennial tower apartments, alley 24 - aspira's out of price range for a 2br, and a few others only had 1br) and a few places with garages and power I could just use 110v for. Spent some time in Seattle a few weeks ago and it was enough to convince me that my driving will be seriously reduced (will use transit a lot), so 110 should be ok. Hopefully one of those will work out, but in the interest of making sure I check out all options - Do you guys know of any parking garages anywhere near downtown, capitol hill, or around the lake (eastlake/westlake/slu) with monthly rates and charging stations? I know monthly parking in seattle is going to be quite a bit, but I figure it's worth doing the math on.

 

[Levenkay]

I think blink is a special case I've yet to hear of a single av charger going out of commission.

I would have said the same up until this weekend, where two of the AV QC stations along I-5 were not fully functional (Bellingham and Castle Rock)

 

[FairwoodRed]

Alright, so in the process of actual home selection now. Have a few apartment buildings I've found with EVSE's and I've got appointments to check them out this weekend (centennial tower apartments, alley 24 - aspira's out of price range for a 2br, and a few others only had 1br) and a few places with garages and power I could just use 110v for. Spent some time in Seattle a few weeks ago and it was enough to convince me that my driving will be seriously reduced (will use transit a lot), so 110 should be ok. Hopefully one of those will work out, but in the interest of making sure I check out all options - Do you guys know of any parking garages anywhere near downtown, capitol hill, or around the lake (eastlake/westlake/slu) with monthly rates and charging stations? I know monthly parking in seattle is going to be quite a bit, but I figure it's worth doing the math on.

I found these places using Recargo. If you want to provide your work locale, I can look for near that too. I work at 5th and Virginia in downtown and would be willing to visit some of these places for you and gather more info if you run out of time.

Centennial Tower – The closest garages are either Seattle Center at $88/month or Whole Foods at $244/month.

Alley 24 – The closest garage is ALLEY 24! and they seem to be sold out. But you can also consider the Pemco Garage (300 Yale) or Metropolitan Park East (call for rates).

This Saturday there is an EV meetup in Woodinville at 1pm if you have time to stop by…

 

[defiancecp]

That's cool! I'm actually scheduled for one of my tours at 1pm, so probably won't make it unfortunately. Thanks for the parking links, and pointing me toward recargo - I'm familiar with a number of other charging station sites, but hadn't seen that one for whatever reason. Looks to be more inclusive than others

 

[defiancecp]

So! Just got confirmed for my new home, figured I'd update for anyone else looking in the area. Found out LOTS - there are a ton of apartment buildings that have EVSEs, but they really don't seem to have figured out how to serve people with EVs. This problem is highlighted by the new via6 building. Place was awesome and as a cyclist I love that they have such a focus on that - so when I found out they had EVSEs on site it was my frontrunner. Then I found out that they charge $1.50 per hour to park in those spaces. I tried to explain that if they wanted to attract people with EVs (and why else would they include EVSEs?) that arrangement didn't make sense even if the price wasn't 5x electricity rate - say I come in from a busy day with relatively low charge and get home at 7-ish. I probably need 6 hours of charge. I'm supposed to go move my car at 1AM? She insisted that $1.50 was a pretty normal charge - I pointed out that $1.50 made sense for an opportunity charger, but not one a resident is going to need to rely on regularly, but they didn't seem interested enough to revisit the policy- the person I spoke with probably had little input in that decision, but hopefully she passed the message on.

Centennial also had EVSEs and they seemed to have no limitation on usage; they were not assigned, but the rep said they were getting minimal use now, and if they ever had contention among residents they'd install more. This was all verbal of course, nothing in writing... but they rented out the 2br they had available the day before I got there, so I didn't really dig much deeper

Alley 24 charged $175 for any parking and EVSE was included, but they make no guarantee of availability and won't assign a space. They went on to say their parking was a 3rd party that made no guarantees on the EVSEs even remaining there or in working order... This might be a good option if someone is interested, though I'd recommend getting in touch with the parking management company (whoever they are) and getting a better feel for that, but I honestly just didn't like the neighborhood feel; everybody seems to like SLU but it was the least favorite of the neighborhoods I looked at (Downtown, Belltown, Capitol Hill, Eastlake, SLU, Fremont, Queen Anne).

Still, just the fact that they had them seems a positive direction, hopefully they'll figure out how to make them usable now

Ended up getting a nice rental apartment with garage; I'll just use 110 or install a 220 plug (just got my evse upgrade back, yay )

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

So! Just got confirmed for my new home, figured I'd update for anyone else looking in the area. Found out LOTS - there are a ton of apartment buildings that have EVSEs, but they really don't seem to have figured out how to serve people with EVs. This problem is highlighted by the new via6 building. Place was awesome and as a cyclist I love that they have such a focus on that - so when I found out they had EVSEs on site it was my frontrunner. Then I found out that they charge $1.50 per hour to park in those spaces. I tried to explain that if they wanted to attract people with EVs (and why else would they include EVSEs?) that arrangement didn't make sense even if the price wasn't 5x electricity rate - say I come in from a busy day with relatively low charge and get home at 7-ish. I probably need 6 hours of charge. I'm supposed to go move my car at 1AM? She insisted that $1.50 was a pretty normal charge - I pointed out that $1.50 made sense for an opportunity charger, but not one a resident is going to need to rely on regularly, but they didn't seem interested enough to revisit the policy- the person I spoke with probably had little input in that decision, but hopefully she passed the message on.

Centennial also had EVSEs and they seemed to have no limitation on usage; they were not assigned, but the rep said they were getting minimal use now, and if they ever had contention among residents they'd install more. This was all verbal of course, nothing in writing... but they rented out the 2br they had available the day before I got there, so I didn't really dig much deeper

Alley 24 charged $175 for any parking and EVSE was included, but they make no guarantee of availability and won't assign a space. They went on to say their parking was a 3rd party that made no guarantees on the EVSEs even remaining there or in working order... This might be a good option if someone is interested, though I'd recommend getting in touch with the parking management company (whoever they are) and getting a better feel for that, but I honestly just didn't like the neighborhood feel; everybody seems to like SLU but it was the least favorite of the neighborhoods I looked at (Downtown, Belltown, Capitol Hill, Eastlake, SLU, Fremont, Queen Anne).

Still, just the fact that they had them seems a positive direction, hopefully they'll figure out how to make them usable now

Ended up getting a nice rental apartment with garage; I'll just use 110 or install a 220 plug (just got my evse upgrade back, yay )

I am also a renter and found that using the dryer plug was an option, using 120 on a limited basis worked but also put in a 240 plug at my former residence (didn't tell the landlord) but made the install completely reversible so they never knew any different.